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As many as a dozen "Occupy Wall Street" protestors and their allies were arrested Thursday afternoon as they tried to stop a foreclosure auction inside a courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y.

As the auctioneer called the proceeding to order, the protestors, who had been sitting quietly in the courtroom, broke into song. “Mrs. Auctioneer, all the people here are asking you to hold all the sales right now,” they sang, in surprising harmony. “We’re hoping to survive, but we don’t know how.”

Their voices filled the courtroom and, for a while at least, brought the proceedings to a half. After a few minutes, a court security officer warned them to stop or face arrest, but he could barely be heard over the singing. The singing continued for about a half an hour until they were led off in plastic handcuffs, still singing.

The disruption coincided with a larger protest outside the state Supreme Court building in downtown Brooklyn, across the East River from Wall Street.

“We all know there are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their homes through nothing but outright theft,” housing activist Frank Morales told a crowd of more than 100 outside the courthouse.

The courtroom action was planned in secret by protestors linked to Occupy Wall Street and another group, "Organizing for Occupation," which had previously formed an “eviction blockade” at the home of an 82-year-old grandmother in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn. So far, the group has been able to prevent the woman's eviction, but the outcome of Thursday’s sing-in in the courtroom was less certain.